Oct. 22--The Centerville City Council Monday night voted 3-2 to keep the $50 police escort fee charged to funeral homes.

Councilman Kris Koestner made the motion to rescind the fee, seconded by Councilman Bill McAfee, only to be out voted by Councilmen Mike Zintz, Rob Lind and Wallace "Moe" Carter.

The escort fee was implemented as a means to raise revenue for the city. Funeral homes are required to provide an escort for the funeral procession through the city but the police department has been doing the service for them.

"We've always done it and not ever had a problem with doing it," Police Chief Tom Demry said. "But it was a potential revenue source from the funeral homes back to the city."

The discussion over the mayor's pay took an unexpected turn when it was revealed the council never offered a resolution to reduce the salary by $4,000. That oversight also meant the council never reduced their salary from $1,000 per year to $1.

City Clerk Kris May said the council earlier this year voted 3-2 to reduce the mayor's pay.

"But there wasn't anything there that changed it," May said. "And there was a motion that didn't allow for it but there wasn't anything that stated that the mayor's salary should have been changed."

But yet it sounded as if all three councilmen who voted for the decrease in mayor's and council's pay -- Koestner, Lind and Zintz -- were under the impression it had been approved.

"And the motion made by Councilmen Carter and McAfee failed," Koestner said. "And we made a motion to accept the budget recommendation."

May said the resolution passed was to approve the budget as submitted. But the budget did not reflect the salary decreases.

Zintz raised the possibility the council passing a motion to amend and approve the salary cuts.

"I believe the money is there right now and we're getting ready for a new budget," McAfee countered. "I don't think there's any reason to change anything now."

May said at the time the council was considering cutting several department budgets and called the entire situation "confusing."

"Because we had an initial budget, which changed after the budget was submitted," May said. "And then we had more changes after that. So really the budget that we're working on now isn't the budget that we actually submitted."

Lind fell on the sword and accepted responsibility for the council.

"The problem is, we didn't come up with another resolution to countermand the one that was in effect with the mayor's pay and the councilman's pay," Lind said. "So we failed to take care of that in a legal matter. I think we failed if we wanted to do that.